Jerry Foust's Green House art gallery and artists' residence at 75 Greene Street in SoHo was, in the words of Bob Arihood, the "successor to the Cave Artist Co-operative." Now it looks like the Green House has gone into the Dumpster, just like the Cave.

Housed in a landmarked cast-iron building, SoHo's (most likely) last bohemian art space existed under the auspices of building owner Sue Stein. New York Art World writes about this "time capsule from New York’s wild frontier days of the 1970s," saying that Stein "wouldn't mind if it was fixed up a bit, but when asked if she could see it as a commercial space, she insisted 'that will never happen.'"

The gallery and artists' home thrived for a while, a miracle in a SoHo that Trigger Magazine called "occupied with German-like precision by Chanel, Prada and John Fluevog" in their article about Green House.

found painting

This week, a reader of JVNY writes in to say: "Walked by 75 Greene tonight, saw a huge dumpster out front. I know it was Jerry Foust's gallery and one of the last remnants of SoHo's golden era. Dumpster was packed full of paintings and a friend and I managed to save these. Any info?"

All I can find about the Green House shutting down are from commenters to this youtube video of an opening at the gallery. They say that the space has been padlocked for not being "up to code." If anyone else has information to share about the fate of Green House, or the source of these rescued paintings, please let us know.

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Last year I visited the Antiques Garage, final holdout of the Chelsea flea market, soon after its building was sold to a developer for $42.7 million. It was just a matter of time, and today we hear it's leaving the hood for good. [Racked]

Those words could be said today, but they were written in a 1907 New York Times story. The movement to erase Chinatown goes back at least to the late 1800s, when a supporter of its eradication proclaimed, "In all New York City, there is not a more disreputable street than Pell Street nor a more forbidding cow-path than Doyers Street." Together, these lanes were "cesspools of immorality vile enough to bring a curse upon the entire community."

Despite the city's best efforts, Chinatown did not die and Doyers has since stayed in Chinese hands. Of course, with Chinatown unprotected from developers, this will likely change.

I recently stumbled upon the wonders of Doyers and wrote about them briefly here. But like Oscar the Cat, I sometimes have an unsettling knack for curling up next to the dying in their final hours. Of course, it's not hard to spot the dying in this city--just look for what's old, beloved, and surrounded by encroaching glass.

Gold Flower hides Apotheke

Whipping up buzz for its opium and absinthe cocktails, the arrival of trendy, upscale Apotheke signals the death of Doyers. One of these places always begets another, then a boutique, a demolition, a condo, a crowd of scenesters--and in no time we'll see Doyers as we know it vanish. New York Magazine agrees when they say that Doyers "will soon become the Freemans Alley of Chinatown."

The street was named for Hendrick Doyer, a Dutchman who ran a distillery in the early 1800s where the post office is today. Doyer's became Doyers, thanks to "a careless painter of street signs" who "omitted the apostrophe," according to Herbert Asbury in an excellent 1926 essay about Doyers' distant history.

Known as the Bloody Angle, Doyers was the site of many battles between the Chinese tong gangs in the late 1800s and early 20th century. They killed each other with hatchets while "Disciples of the Pear Garden" sang onstage at the Chinese opera house. Doyers was also a good place to be shanghaied by a crimp or kidnapped into sexual slavery. There were opium dens and fan tan parlors. There were trapdoors, secrets openings, underground tunnels, and the infamous Arcade, a passageway that ran in an L-shape from Doyers to Mott.

Today Doyers is peaceful, but it's no empty alley like Freeman's was. A steady flow of Chinese pedestrians move through it, going to the barber shop, the post office, or just taking a shortcut. There's a sense of comfort and familiarity here. It is a vibrant community. In another great essay worth reading, Bruce Edward Hall calls Doyers "the nerve center through which throbs all the essential life of New York City’s Chinatown."

I sat down for oolong tea and almond cookies at the Nom Wah Tea Parlor. Here since 1920, it's run by Wally Tang, who just missed his chance to appear in a Richard Gere movie.

The parlor has an otherwordly feeling about it, filled with haphazard red vinyl booths and tables, the tile floor littered with Chinese newspapers. A mouse skitters by. Chinese music plays from a radio. Flies lazily buzz in from the open doorway. Through the dusty, sun-drenched window, from the Hip Kee salon across Doyers, a lady barber steps out for a cigarette with her black hair rolled in blue foam curlers.

A young white man walks in to the tea parlor, bearded and headphoned, and asks, "What kind of coffee do you have here?" The proprietor explains they have only tea, and the young man walks away, perhaps wishing for a Starbucks. How long will he have to wish?

Apotheke's door

A few doors down, a pair of Chinese men sit outside the Gold Flower restaurant that has become Apotheke. They smoke cigarettes and watch the street. Do they know what lies in waiting behind that half-risen metal door? Do they know that it is a magnet attracting the gweilo--the ghost men, the foreign devils, the walking dead--to come stake a claim in their peaceful hideaway?

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Sometimes, a new development that looks like luxury turns out to be housing for lower income people and/or the otherwise homeless. There's the Lee on East Houston, with "104 apartments reserved for homeless people struggling with mental illnesses" and another 54 for kids aging out of the foster care system.

The Lee is being developed by Common Ground, creators of affordable housing. They're also behind one of the latest developments on the Bowery. Something the NY Press called "Flophouse Redux."They're turning the 99-year-old flophouse Andrew's Hotel into a "lodging house," which is a prettier name for a flophouse, as they aim to "save the aging buildings and their tenants from developers while reinventing the Bowery formula to serve a new generation of homeless," including "a dying breed of Bowery lifers who want to be left alone"--and drunk.

The Times described the Andrew's Hotel in 2000: "Walk up a steep, narrow flight of stairs in one hotel, the Andrew's, at 197 Bowery. Look into its dim lobby. It is like a yellowing photograph. Smoke hangs in the dank air. The cigar-stained walls are a smudgy green. Wooden chairs are lined in neat rows across the patterned-tile floor. Grizzled denizens peer out dirty windows onto the wide street and wonder where the years went. Time seems to operate oddly there."

The new Andrew's will be different. The design and plans for the lodging house were based on ideas from Japan and the needs and desires of homeless men and women. It's not a condo (cheek-by-jowl with Nolita Place, where Nicole Richie bought for a million) but it will look like one, kind of a cross between Cemusa and Ikea.

Everyone likes a little luxury in their lives--in this video from the Times, one resident is just really happy to finally have shelves--but I do have to ask: Is it being Jonesified just for the homeless or for their new Bowery neighbors?

Until then, fragments of the old Andrew's remain. In the facade tear-down, a glimpse into the Bowery past is briefly revealed:

Monday, August 25, 2008

What will be the future of Times Square? Ask Benjamin Chesluk, author of Money Jungle. [NYT]

A goodbye to Cafe Figaro in a city where "nothing is mourned" and cafes like Figaro have become unnecessary. [Times]

Marc Jacobs: "I am a perfect being in a perfect world." Can you see the threads between this belief system and the carnage on Bleecker? [Racked]

New York "tycoons" eat sushi off platters made of naked women. Can you not hear the empire crumbling? [NYM]

Jonathan Franzen mines more of the anti-cell phone territory he began in "Imperial Bedroom," and I love it: "Just 10 years ago, New York City (where I live) still abounded with collectively maintained public spaces in which citizens demonstrated respect for their community by not inflicting their banal bedroom lives on it. The world 10 years ago was not yet fully conquered by yak." [TechRev]

In 1948 the Fiumefreddo family took over the business, back when it was still across the street, where falafel is now made under a tin ceiling. They inherited the leather chairs, the gas-powered hot towel steamer, the 100-year-old brass cash register, among other artifacts.

They don’t use the hot towel steamer anymore because it’s against the health code. “Back in the '60s,” one of the Fiumefreddo brothers told me, “the Board of Health shut them down because they were unsanitary. They found a lot of barbers were using them to keep sandwiches warm.”

Though the Fiumefreddos are celebrating their 60th, the shop’s birthday goes back another 40-odd years. The window says it was established in 1906, but the awning puts it at 1904. So which is it?

“The guy who did the awning got it wrong,” Mr. Fiumefreddo explained, “We just left it like that.”

If it did open in 1903, that makes this barber shop a whopping 105 years old. That's just one year younger than the oldest barber shop in New Jersey and the oldest barber shop in the U.S. (both 1902, let them fight it out). I'd have to guess that being established in 1903 makes Park Slope Barber the oldest shop in New York City. Does anyone know one that's older?

"Turns out, the landlord wants to close/sell an entire string of stores along 1st Ave: Kathy's Jewelers, David's, and Wines on 1st, possibly continuing down the rest of the block (sushi place and small deli; not sure about GNC). A friend connected to one of these stores tells me the landlord wants to at least use the three stores named to open a bar (cuz lord knows what we need in the East Village is another effing bar). I blame the A Building for all of this."

Already, the Lucky Huang gift shop next to Wine on 1st and the "Nail Nail Nail" nail salon next to that have long been shuttered. August 29 is the last day for David's Bagels:

If the news is true, then pretty much this entire block is about to go up in smoke. My fingers are crossed that the neighboring H&W Hardware, founded in 1924, isn't marked for destruction too. *Update: I can quit crossing my fingers, according to a commenter here, the landlord is hiking the rent on H&W's lease. Now that leaves just the two anchor stores on the block, both chains: GNC and Hot N Crusty.

12th Street Books is having its moving sale for the next two weeks: All books are 50% off and they're bringing a bunch of stuff up from the basement.

Sorting out the whole Extell, Westbrook, Ben Shaoul, East Village Portfolio tenant-harassment thing. [Curbed] And EV Grieve has more.

And here's who they're making room for: Corcoran's "broker to the stars" says of his "young, hip" and loaded clients, "we have many, many people who want to be in the East Village." It's time to leave. [Curbed]

Gen Y gets more free shit just for being, well, them... “When it gets a little boring, I might pull it out"--the mantra of the iPhone age, in which everything is apparently "a little boring" since these masturbation substitutes are always out, everywhere. [Times]

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Though it's still under construction, it looks like condo Yves is already welcoming new tenants. This guy walked out of the lobby, looked around, grabbed the scaffolding, and started doing pull ups. Someone tell him the scaffolding will not be one of the amenities:

Skyline Books is having their annual 30% off sale--until around Labor Day. Go, go, go and support this shop, because you know they won't be there forever:

Like most of the businesses on the block before it, the Salvation Army thrift store on West 8th Street is on the verge of vanishing.

A sign in the window says “Prime Retail Space Available.” Their 10-year lease has expired and they are “in limbo,” trying to negotiate a new lease with the landlord. But with that sign up, and the way things are going up and down that ghost-town of a block, the future looks grim for what many New Yorkers, and Villagers especially, think of as the best Salvy in town.

Even dedicated label-hunters find hits here, unearthing clothes and accessories from Hermes, Brooks Brothers, and many other designers, all for about 10 bucks or less. It may be one of the few remaining places in the city where rich, poor, and those in the middle can all go urban-treasure hunting together. You can even find a strange surplus of "Dubya Duds."

Now it may be time to say goodbye to Salvy’s “3 Floors of Shopping Excitement.”

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

"The bloom is off the Apple," says residential SoHo. (Remember, people actually live in that mall?) Furthermore, "no bar, nightclub, or construction site comes close to continually ruining our quality of life like Apple SoHo has." You go SoHo! [AMNY]

Here's an interesting article on gentrification from Next American City: "Many gentriﬁers are in college or graduate school, and the income that these newcomers report to the IRS often approaches zero."

Get inside the mind trying to keep Applebee's from going kaput. It's a place filled with "phrases like 'drink equity' and 'healthy indulgence rebranding.' Everyone is on the hunt for the next 'craveable.'" [Times]

The sudden, if not entirely unexpected, closing of Nikos magazine shop on 6th Ave and 11th St was a devastating blow to periodical lovers all over town. Just 11 days later, Nikos has been renamed Nicky's. Any relation?

The recessed entrance is gone, the door blown out to expand the space, and the windows have been cleared of all those curling journal covers faded in the sun, so you can actually see inside.

A large refrigerator filled with Vitamin Waters and Cokes. The shelves full of People, Vogue, Newsweek, and the like. I could be wrong, but somehow I doubt we'll ever see Daedalus, Dislocate, Lacanian Ink, or the New York Quarterly in this new place.

Monday, August 18, 2008

Finding her beloved theater turned into a Sephora, Leslie Nipkow writes, "I want to sit in a theater seat and lose myself in somebody else’s imagination for a few hours. I want to be reminded that my world does not stop at the front of my face." [Times]

The Stuyvesant Polyclinic is to be a "think-tank sort of thing" and not a private mansion, as previously marketed. I guess Lenny Kravitz wasn't interested after all. [Times] via [EVG]

On Grand St., a developer's condo plans go up in smoke for a homeless shelter. He claims the locals were "jealous." [NYP]

A look at one of the Bowery's last flophouses--and Sam Chang's (so far thwarted) efforts to turn it luxury. [Metro]

“This might be the beginning of the end of the American empire.” [Times]

"Once there was another city here, and now it is gone. There are almost no traces of it anymore, but millions of us know it existed, because we lived in it: the Lost City of New York." --Pete Hamill, New York Magazine, 1987

Friday, August 15, 2008

Recently I reported a rumor on the street that the old Kurowycky butcher shop on First Ave in the East Village would become a video store--possibly a XXX video store. It's not XXX, but the rumor has been confirmed: Kim's is coming east again, four years after closing their "mean" location on Avenue A, where the original Kim's was born in 1987.

From a source close to the source, we hear that after the Community Board roadblocked Penmanship, the upscale eatery that may have preserved some of the vintage butcher shop elements, the building and former butcher shop's owner decided not to further pursue the restaurant route.

Already, Kurowycky is being gutted. The sign recently came down--the letters were too brittle to save, crumbling in the demolition men's hands--revealing an older sign, spelled out in the ghosts of lost tiles: STASIUK BROS, the meat market bought out by Jaroslaw Kurowycky in 1974, long before these days when, as the shop's head butcher once told Drawger, "everybody want Whole Food stores: a lot of lights, decorations, show off, that’s what they want."

Thankfully, some folks from the neighboring International Bar have been working with Kim to salvage some of the marble and the porcelain subway tiles from Kurowycky. And while I'm sad to say most of it is going, I am not sad to know that we're getting a Kim's instead of another crowded, noisy restaurant. Especially when the big Kim's on 8th Street will be closing.

After last week’s egg cream controversy stirred up by the City Room’s article “Can the Egg Cream Make a Comeback?” in which the proprietor of Chocolate Bar offered to reinvigorate the lost egg cream for New York City by fancying it up with flavors like hazelnut and espresso, many people replied that the egg cream never died, so it isn't lost and doesn’t need any reinvigorating. An egg cream fan, I decided to embark on a tour of the Lower East Side to check in on the true state of this New York delicacy.A map of the following can be found on Eater.

katz's

I talked with Fred Austin, co-owner of Katz’s, who assured me, “The state of the egg cream is good. But it has to be served by a middle-aged Jewish guy with an unlit cigar clenched between his teeth and a wet napkin draped over his arm. Otherwise, it’s not a real egg cream.” Traditionally, because they didn’t serve dairy, Katz’s didn’t do egg creams until about 15 years ago. Fred, who grew up on Grand, used to get them from kiosks on the street. “Those were the best.” What does he say to the claim that Chocolate Bar is bringing the egg cream back to life? “Not if they’re making them hazelnut they’re not.”

(As for those perennial whispers Katz’s might be vanishing, Fred says, “Every so often I drop the rumor we might be closing, just to boost our business, but I like this place too much. We’ll be around for a long while.”)

The Stats:Fox’s U-Bet, seltzer from the soda machine, $3.50

russ & daughters

Next stop, Russ & Daughters. Here my egg cream was prepared in the most romantic way. The seltzer came out of a blue glass siphon bottle and was delicately poured over the basin of a long spoon. The lady asked, “Do you want it more seltzer or more sweet?” I like sweet.Fox’s U-Bet, Castle brand seltzer from glass siphon, $3.50

At Yonah Schimmel’s, they give you the best presentation. Syrup is added in the back kitchen, milk and seltzer comes from a fridge in the dining room. It is not entirely mixed and a little swirl of chocolate graces the foam. If I were handing out points, they’d lose for the Canada Dry, but the finished product is lovely. Washes down a knish very nicely.Fox’s U-Bet, Canada Dry seltzer from a plastic bottle, $3.00

yonah schimmel's

Veselka was the only place I went where you can get it in a glass, instead of a plastic or waxpaper cup. Tastes cold and frothy.Fox’s U-Bet, seltzer from soda machine, $2.50.

The B&H Dairy does a fine enough egg cream, though they lose theoretical points for using Seagram’s seltzer from a can.Fox’s U-Bet, Seagram’s, $2.50

The Stage restaurant was the only place I visited that didn’t use Fox’s U-Bet syrup. They used Hershey’s, a big faux-pas. Still, a good-tasting egg cream.Hershey’s, seltzer from soda machine, $2.25.

gem spa

Gem Spa is known for its egg creams, but mine was a little too seltzer and not enough sweet. A good newsstand egg cream nonetheless.Fox’s U-Bet, seltzer from fountain, $2.00.

While all of the above places offer only the traditional chocolate or vanilla, Ray’s Candy has 20 flavors to choose from, including Coca-Cola, Mango, and something frighteningly called Sky Blue Raspberry. These sound more like slushies than egg creams, but they’re so outlandish and low-brow, I can’t hold it against them. Besides, Ray’s is my usual egg cream source. They’ve also got the best value.Fox’s U-Bet, seltzer from soda machine, $1.25 small, $1.75 med, $2.50 large.

ray's candy

Finally, I tried the egg cream from Chocolate Bar. I passed over the hazelnut and espresso for a traditional chocolate. I must admit, it was tasty, they prepared it well, and the price was surprisingly low. It won't reinvigorate the already thriving egg cream, but it shouldn't do it any harm, either.Fox’s U-Bet, seltzer from a stainless siphon, $2.00 vanilla and chocolate, $3.00 hazelnut and espresso.

I'm sure I didn’t try every egg cream in the neighborhood and there are many others all over the city--please add your favorite in the comments--but even this short list should go to show that the egg cream is alive and well, and in no need of rescuing any time soon.

Lower East Siders are not going gently into the dark night of the planned rezoning. Yesterday, about 100 protesters let Bloomberg know where they stand. Members of the Coalition to Protect Chinatown and the Lower East Side were there, making themselves heard.

The Coalition has been covering the city with arresting flyers featuring an Eric Drooker-style drawing of people being kicked out of their homes by a giant, evil developer. They also put together an excellent website.

Their DCP Plan page is packed with info, including lots of colorful maps and graphs showing how the white and affluent stand to benefit from the rezoning while everyone else is, well, given the boot.

It also includes a jaw-dropping rendering of a proposed development called Site 167, a ginormous Avalon-type condo box on Avenue D and 2nd Street.

Here's the same corner some months ago, as shot by Google Maps:

EV Grieve checked in on this corner back in July and found it ready for demolition. Below is the corner today. Notice that the still-standing building on the left and the Pioneer grocery store on the right are NOT included in the rendering of the glass box above. That is a big box.

It is quite clear, especially after hearing Amanda Burden's fantasy, that the future of this neighborhood is in peril. While we may be saved from 20-story towers, we will become ever more vulnerable to an unstoppable tsunami of squat, block-sized Avalons.

The EV/LES rezoning has turned out to be a big bait-and-switch, allowing what Save the LES reports could be a potential 124% increase in development (and accompanying eviction and demolition). In 60 days, unless something major changes, more than one “rich, rich, rich horrible person” will get their wish.

As EV Grieve reported, a new TV show called Life on Mars is filming in the East Village. Originally from the BBC, it's about a detective who goes back in time to 1970s New York. I might have to watch this.

Earlier this week, film crews turned back the clock to 1973 and filled 7th Street with hippies, rollerskaters, bikers, bongo players, and vintage cars.

I took some pics and thought it would be too, too precious to publish them in black and white. You can see a few more here.

Later, BoweryBoogie spotted them on Orchard. They better film fast--Orchard is vanishing every day.

Life on Mars isn't the only production trying to capture the former New York. There have also been notices up about the John Hurt film An Englishman in New York, the second installment in the story of Quentin Crisp. The production company is seeking exteriors that bring to mind the 70s and early 80s. Too bad Quentin's beloved Cooper Square Diner has since morphed into "bizarre Thai restaurant" Kurve.